This is the accessible text file for GAO report number GAO-14-342T
entitled 'Border Security: DHS Needs to Strengthen Its Efforts to
Modernize Key Enforcement Systems' which was released on February 6,
2014.
This text file was formatted by the U.S. Government Accountability
Office (GAO) to be accessible to users with visual impairments, as
part of a longer term project to improve GAO products' accessibility.
Every attempt has been made to maintain the structural and data
integrity of the original printed product. Accessibility features,
such as text descriptions of tables, consecutively numbered footnotes
placed at the end of the file, and the text of agency comment letters,
are provided but may not exactly duplicate the presentation or format
of the printed version. The portable document format (PDF) file is an
exact electronic replica of the printed version. We welcome your
feedback. Please E-mail your comments regarding the contents or
accessibility features of this document to Webmaster@gao.gov.
This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright
protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed
in its entirety without further permission from GAO. Because this work
may contain copyrighted images or other material, permission from the
copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to reproduce this
material separately.
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
Testimony:
Before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency,
Committee on Homeland Security, House of Representatives:
For Release on Delivery:
Expected at 10:00 a.m. EST:
Thursday, February 6, 2014:
Border Security:
DHS Needs to Strengthen Its Efforts to Modernize Key Enforcement
Systems:
Statement of David A. Powner:
Director, Information Technology Management Issues:
GAO-14-342T:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-14-342T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on
Oversight and Management Efficiency, Committee on Homeland Security,
House of Representatives.
Why GAO Did This Study:
DHS's border enforcement system, known as TECS, is the primary system
for determining admissibility of persons to the United States. It is
used to prevent terrorism, and provide border security and law
enforcement, case management, and intelligence functions for multiple
federal, state, and local agencies. It has become increasingly
difficult and expensive to maintain and is unable to support new
mission requirements. In 2008, DHS began an effort to modernize the
system. It is being managed as two separate programs by CBP and ICE.
In December 2013, GAO reported that DHS needed to strengthen its
efforts to modernize these key enforcement systems. This statement
summarizes that report. Specifically, it covers (1) the scope and
status of the two TECS Mod programs, (2) selected program management
practices for TECS Mod, (3) the extent to which DHS is executing
effective oversight and governance of the two TECS Mod programs, and
(4) the importance of addressing our recommendations for improving
DHS's development efforts.
What GAO Found:
The schedule and cost for the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS)
border enforcement system modernization program known as TECS Mod that
is managed by Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) continue to
change; while the part managed in parallel by Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) is undergoing major revisions to its scope,
schedule, and cost after discovering that its initial solution is not
technically viable. CBP's $724 million program intends to modernize
the functionality, data, and aging infrastructure of legacy TECS and
move it to DHS's data centers by 2016. To date, CBP has deployed
functionality to improve its secondary inspection processes to air and
sea ports of entry and, more recently, to land ports of entry in 2013.
However, CBP is in the process of revising its schedule baseline for
the second time in under a year. Further, CBP has not developed its
master schedule sufficiently to reliably manage work activities or
monitor program progress. These factors raise questions about the
certainty of CBP's remaining schedule commitments. Regarding ICE's
$818 million TECS Mod program, it is redesigning and replanning its
program, having determined in June 2013 that its initial solution was
not viable and could not support ICE's needs. As a result, ICE largely
halted development and is now assessing design alternatives and is
revising its schedule and cost estimates. Program officials stated the
revisions will be complete in spring 2014. Until ICE completes the
replanning effort, it is unclear what functionality it will deliver,
when it will deliver it, or what it will cost to do so, thus putting
it in jeopardy of not completing the modernization by its 2015
deadline.
CBP and ICE have managed many risks in accordance with some leading
practices, but they have had mixed results in managing requirements
for their programs. In particular, neither program identified all
known risks, nor escalated them for timely management review. Further,
CBP's guidance reflects most leading practices for effectively
managing requirements, but important requirements development
activities were underway before such guidance was established. ICE,
meanwhile, operated without requirements management guidance for
years, and its requirements activities were mismanaged, resulting in
testing failures and delays. ICE issued requirements guidance in March
2013 that is consistent with leading practices, but it has not yet
been implemented.
DHS's governance bodies have taken actions to oversee the two TECS Mod
programs that are generally aligned with leading practices.
Specifically, they have monitored TECS Mod performance and progress
and have ensured that corrective actions have been identified and
tracked. However, a lack of complete, timely, and accurate data have
affected the ability of these governance bodies to make informed and
timely decisions, thus limiting their effectiveness. Until these
governance bodies base their performance reviews on timely, complete,
and accurate data, they will be constrained in their ability to
effectively provide oversight.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO is making no new recommendations in this statement. In its
December 2013 report, GAO recommended that DHS improve its efforts to
manage requirements and risk, as well as its governance of the TECS
Mod programs. DHS agreed with all but one of GAO's eight
recommendations, disagreeing with the recommendation about improving
CBP's master schedule. GAO continues to believe improvements are
necessary to validate schedule commitments and monitor progress.
View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-342T]. For more
information, contact David A. Powner at (202) 512-9586, or
pownerd@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Chairman Duncan, Ranking Member Barber, and Members of the
Subcommittee:
I am pleased to be here today to discuss the Department of Homeland
Security's (DHS) border enforcement system, known as TECS.[Footnote 1]
TECS has been used since the 1980's for preventing terrorism,
providing border security and law enforcement, and sharing information
about people who are inadmissible or may pose a threat to the security
of the United States, and today still provides traveler processing and
screening, investigations, case management, and intelligence functions
for multiple federal, state, and local agencies. Over time, however;
it has become increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain because
of technology obsolescence and its inability to support new mission
requirements. DHS estimates that TECS's licensing and maintenance
costs are expected to be $40 million to $60 million per year in 2015.
In 2008 the department initiated TECS Modernization (TECS Mod) to
modernize existing system functionality, address known capability
gaps, and move the program's infrastructure to DHS's new data centers.
TECS Mod is managed as two separate programs working in parallel: U.S.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) are each modernizing existing functionality specific
to their respective roles and missions within the department. Both
programs had planned to be fully operational by September 2015.
In December 2013, we reported that DHS needed to strengthen its
efforts to modernize these key border enforcement systems.[Footnote 2]
In that report, we issued multiple recommendations aimed at improving
DHS's efforts to develop and implement its TECS Mod programs. My
testimony today will summarize the results of that report.
Specifically, I will cover (1) the scope and status of the two TECS
Mod programs, (2) selected CBP and ICE program management practices
for TECS Mod, (3) the extent to which DHS is executing effective
executive oversight and governance of the two TECS Mod programs, and
(4) the importance of addressing our recommendations for improving
DHS's development efforts.
The work on which my testimony is based was conducted from December
2012 to December 2013. Further details on the scope and methodology
for the previously-issued report are available within that published
product. In addition, we analyzed recently-received documentation from
DHS on the status of the two TECS Mod programs. All work on which this
testimony is based was performed in accordance with generally accepted
government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan
and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to
provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on
our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a
reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit
objectives.
Background:
TECS is an information technology (IT) and data management system that
supports DHS's core border enforcement mission. According to CBP, it
is one of the largest, most important law enforcement systems
currently in use, and is the primary system available to CBP officers
and agents from other departments for use in determining the
admissibility of persons wishing to enter the country. In addition, it
provides an investigative case management function for activities
carried out by ICE agents, including money-laundering tracking and
reporting; telephone data analysis; and intelligence reporting and
dissemination.
Over time, TECS has evolved into a multifaceted computing platform
that CBP describes as a system of systems. This mainframe-based system
dates back to the 1980s and interfaces with over 80 other systems from
within DHS, other federal departments and their component agencies, as
well as state, local, and foreign governments. It contains over 350
database tables, queries and reports (e.g., querying law enforcement
records to determine if a traveler appears on a terrorist watch list),
and multiple applications (e.g., ICE's existing investigative case
management system). CBP agents and other users access TECS via
dedicated terminals. The system is managed by CBP's Office of
Passenger Systems Program Office and is currently hosted at CBP's
datacenter.
On a daily basis, the system is used by over 70,000 users and handles
more than 2 million transactions--including the screening of over
900,000 visitors and approximately 465,000 vehicles every day. In
addition, federal, state, local, and international law enforcement
entities use TECS to create and disseminate alerts and other law
enforcement information about "persons of interest." Ten federal
departments and their numerous component agencies access the system to
perform a part of their missions.
The current TECS system uses obsolete technology, which combined with
expanding mission requirements, have posed operational challenges for
CBP and others. For example, users may need to access and navigate
among several different systems to investigate, resolve, and document
an encounter with a passenger. In addition, CBP identified that TECS's
search algorithms do not adequately match names from foreign
alphabets. TECS's obsolescence also makes it difficult and expensive
to maintain and support. Specifically, DHS estimates that TECS's
licensing and maintenance costs are expected to be $40 million to $60
million per year in 2015.
In 2008, DHS initiated efforts to modernize TECS by replacing the
mainframe technology, developing new applications and enhancing
existing applications to address expanding traveler screening mission
needs, improving data integration to provide enhanced search and case
management capabilities, and improving user interface and data access.
DHS's plan was to migrate away from the existing TECS mainframe by
September 2015 to avoid significantly escalating support costs. The
modernization effort is managed by two program offices--one at CBP and
the other at ICE--working in parallel, with each having assumed
responsibility for modernizing the parts of the system aligned with
their respective missions.
CBP expects that its modernization efforts will yield certain
improvements over the existing system, including the following.
* Enhancements to TECS's search algorithms to better match names from
foreign alphabets; address gaps in current processes that could result
in missing a person of interest. This includes an improved ability for
inspectors to update information on travelers at air and sea borders
at the time of encounter.
* Improvements in the flow and integration of data between CBP and its
partner agencies and organizations. This is intended to aid the
agency's inspectors by providing timely, complete, and accurate
information about a traveler during the secondary inspection process.
CBP planned to develop, deploy, and implement these capabilities
incrementally across five projects from 2008 to 2015.
* Secondary Inspection: This project is to support processing of
travelers referred from primary inspection for either enforcement or
administrative reasons. According to CBP, this project's functionality
was fully deployed to all air and sea ports of entry in 2011, and was
fully deployed to all land ports of entry in 2013.
* High Performance Primary Query and Manifest Processing: This project
is intended to improve TECS data search results in order to expedite
the processing of manifests from individuals traveling to the United
States on commercial or private aircraft, and commercial vessels. It
is to be fully operational by March 2015.
* Travel Document and Encounter Data: This project is intended to
improve CBP's ability to query and validate travel documentation for
both passengers and their means of conveyance. It is to be fully
operational by March 2015.
* Lookout Record Data and Services: This project is intended to
improve the efficiency of existing data screening and analyses
capabilities. It is to be fully operational by March 2015.
* Primary Inspection Processes: This project is intended to modernize
the overall inspection process and provide support for additional or
random screening and communication functions. It is to be fully
operational by March 2015.
As part of each of these projects, CBP is also developing an online
access portal, called TECS Portal, for authorized users to access
information remotely using a modern web browser, along with security
and infrastructure improvements, and the migration of data from the
current system to databases in the new environment at the DHS
datacenter. Ultimately, TECS Mod functionality is to be deployed to
over 340 ports of entry across the United States.
ICE's TECS Mod effort is to focus on specific law enforcement and
criminal justice functions; tools to support ICE officers' collection
of information, data analysis, and management operations; enhanced
capabilities to access and create data linkages with information
resources from elsewhere in DHS and other law enforcement agencies;
and capabilities to better enable investigative and intelligence
operations, corresponding management activities, and information
sharing. Similar to CBP, ICE intended to deliver functionality in
multiple phases:
* Phase 1: Core Case Management: This phase was to encompass all case
management functions currently residing in the existing TECS system.
ICE planned to develop and deploy these functions in three releases
beginning in 2009, and was scheduled to deploy Release 1 by December
2013, with additional releases following about every 12 months, in
order to achieve independence from the existing TECS platform by
September 2015. Specific capabilities that were to be provided include:
- basic electronic case management functions, including opening cases,
performing supervisory review of cases, and closing cases within the
system;
- development of reports for use as evidentiary material in court
proceedings arising from ICE agents' investigations;
- maintenance of records relating to the subjects of ICE
investigations; and:
- audit capabilities to monitor system usage.
* Phase 2: Comprehensive Case Management: This phase was to expand on
the features delivered as part of phase one and to be delivered in
four increments starting in 2016, with an estimated completion date in
fiscal year 2017.
DHS Oversight of Major IT Programs:
DHS's Office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the Office of
the Under Secretary for Management are to play key roles in overseeing
major acquisition programs like TECS Mod. For example, the CIO's
responsibilities include setting departmental IT policies, processes,
and standards; and ensuring that IT acquisitions comply with DHS IT
management processes, technical requirements, and approved enterprise
architecture, among other things. Within the Office of the CIO, the
Enterprise Business Management Office has been given primary
responsibility for ensuring that the department's IT investments align
with its missions and objectives. As part of its responsibilities,
this office periodically assesses IT investments like TECS Mod to
gauge how well they are performing through a review of program risk,
human capital, cost and schedule, and requirements.
In October 2011, DHS's Under Secretary for Management established the
Office of Program Accountability and Risk Management. This office is
to ensure the effectiveness of the overall program execution
governance process and has the responsibility for developing and
maintaining DHS's Acquisition Management Directive.[Footnote 3] It is
also responsible for periodically providing independent assessments of
major investment programs--called Quarterly Program Accountability
Reports--as well as identifying emerging risks and issues that DHS
needs to address.
In December 2011, DHS introduced a new initiative to improve and
streamline the department's IT program governance. This initiative
established a tiered governance structure for program execution. Among
other things, this new structure includes a series of governance
bodies, each chartered with specific decision-making responsibilities
for each major investment. Among these are executive steering
committees, which serve as the primary decision-making authorities for
DHS's major acquisition programs. ICE chartered its steering committee
in September 2011 and it has been meeting since December of that year.
CBP established its steering committee in early 2013 and it held its
first meeting in February.
Schedule and Cost of Both TECS Modernization Programs Are Unclear:
CBP has begun delivering functionality to its users; however, its
schedule and cost commitments continue to change and are still being
revised. Specifically, CBP intends to modernize the functionality,
data, and aging infrastructure of legacy TECS and move it to DHS's
data centers. CBP plans call for developing, deploying, and
implementing these capabilities in five distinct projects that are to
be delivered by 2015. To date, CBP has completed one of these five
projects, having completed its deployment of functionality to improve
its secondary inspection processes to air, sea, and land ports of
entry in 2013. CBP is in the process of revising its schedule baseline
for the second time in under a year, making it unclear when the
program ultimately intends to deliver needed functionality.
Exacerbating this situation is the fact that CBP has not developed its
master schedule sufficiently to effectively manage work activities or
monitor the program's progress.[Footnote 4] Specifically, the program
has not linked all the work activities in the individual project
schedules, nor has it defined dependencies that exist between projects
in the master schedule: approximately 65 percent of CBP's remaining
work activities were not linked with other associated work activities.
Thus, any delays early in the schedule do not "ripple" (i.e., transmit
delays) to activities later in the schedule, meaning that management
will be challenged to determine how a slip in the completion date of a
particular task may affect the overall schedule. In our report, we
also noted that CBP had not yet developed a detailed schedule for
significant portions of the program. CBP reported in January 2014 that
it has now completed that work.
Program officials stated these deficiencies existed because the
program has only two staff members with skills needed to properly
develop and maintain the schedules, and that fully documenting all the
dependencies would be time consuming, and in their view, not
sufficiently important to warrant the additional resources necessary
to complete them. However, without a complete and integrated master
schedule that includes all program work activities and associated
dependencies, CBP is not in a position to accurately determine the
amount of time required to complete its TECS modernization effort and
develop realistic milestones.
The program's cost estimates have also changed as a result of
rebaselining and are also being revised. The program's baselined
life-cycle cost estimate[Footnote 5] was approximately $724 million,
including $31 million for planning management, $212 million for
development, and $481 million for operations and maintenance.
As of August 2013, the program reported that it had expended about
$226 million. However, as previously stated, the program is in the
process of revising its estimate, and thus, it is unclear how much
it will cost to complete the program. In January 2014, CBP reported
that its revised estimates should be approved internally and submitted
to DHS for its approval by the end of January 2014.
Meanwhile, ICE is replanning its $818 million TECS Mod program, having
determined in June 2013 that the system under development was not
technically viable and could not support ICE's needs--this coming
after having already reduced the scope of its initial program
installment by about 70 percent due to protracted technical
difficulties and schedule delays. Specifically, ICE determined that,
after spending approximately $19 million, the system under development
could not be fielded as part of ICE's eventual solution due to ongoing
technical difficulties with the user interface, access controls, and
case-related data management. Instead of continuing with the existing
technical solution, the program manager explained that ICE would scrap
a significant portion of the work done to date and start over. As a
result, ICE halted most development work in June 2013 and has since
been assessing different design and technical alternatives. In January
2014, ICE reported that it had rebaselined its program requirements
and that it anticipates having its revised cost and schedule estimates
finalized this coming spring. Nevertheless, given the time lost in
developing the current technical solution, as well as the already
reduced program scope, ICE cannot say what specific features it will
release to users, when this functionality will be delivered, or how
much such efforts will cost. As such, ICE is at significant risk of
not achieving independence from the existing system by 2015.
TECS Modernization's Risk Management Is Generally Consistent with
Leading Practices, but Requirements Management Has Had Mixed Results:
Both CBP and ICE implemented risk management practices that are
generally--though not fully--consistent with leading practices, and
both had mixed results in managing program requirements. Of four
leading practices associated with effective risk management, CBP and
ICE each fully implemented two (establishing documented risk
management processes and assigning roles and responsibilities for
managing risks) and partially implemented the other two (capturing all
known risks and managing risk mitigation efforts through to
completion). Specifically, neither program identified all known risks,
nor escalated them for timely review by senior management.
Further, of four leading practices for managing program requirements,
CBP fully implemented three (establishing a requirements management
process, assigning roles and responsibilities for requirements
development and management activities, and defining a change control
process) while partially implementing the one other (eliciting user
needs). However, CBP began executing key requirements activities
before such practices were established, and as a result, CBP officials
reported that some TECS Mod requirements were not as consistently well-
formed or detailed because their process during that time lacked
rigor. In ICE's case, management weaknesses and the lack of
appropriate guidance for the program's requirements management process
led to technical issues, testing failures, and ultimately, the
deferral and/or deletion of about 70 percent of the program's original
requirements. ICE issued new requirements guidance for the program in
March 2013 that is consistent with leading practices, but has yet to
demonstrate that these have been fully implemented.
DHS's Governance Bodies Have Taken Actions Aligned with Leading
Practices, but Incomplete and Inaccurate Data Have Limited Their
Effectiveness:
DHS's governance bodies have taken actions to oversee the two TECS Mod
programs that are generally aligned with leading practices.
Specifically, they have monitored TECS Mod performance and progress
and have ensured that corrective actions have been identified and
tracked. However, a lack of complete, timely, and accurate data have
affected the ability of these governance bodies to make informed and
timely decisions, thus limiting their effectiveness. For example:
* Steering committees. In an April 2013 meeting, the CBP program
manager briefed the steering committee on its target milestone dates;
even though the agency told us a month later that it had not fully
defined its schedule, raising questions about the completeness and
accuracy of the proposed milestone dates upon which the committee
based its oversight decisions.
* The Office of the CIO. In its most recent program health
assessments, the Enterprise Business Management Office partially based
its rating of moderately low risk on CBP's use of earned value
management; however, the program manager stated to us that the CBP
program is not utilizing earned value management because neither it
nor its development contractor had the capability to do so. Similarly,
even though ICE had not reported recent cost or schedule data for its
program--an issue that may signal a significant problem--the Office of
the CIO rated ICE's program as medium risk. The reliance on incomplete
and inaccurate data raises questions about the validity of the risk
ratings.
* Office of Program Accountability and Risk Management. In the July
2013 Quarterly Program Accountability Report, DHS's Office of Program
Accountability and Risk Management rated both TECS Mod programs as
high value with low risk. However, CBP's low-risk rating was based in
part on the quality of the program's master schedule and acquisition
program baseline; however, as we stated earlier, problems with the
agency's schedule raise questions about the validity and quality of
those milestones. Further, the low-risk rating it issued for ICE was
based, in part, on its assessment of ICE's performance between April
and September 2012, which rated the program's cost performance with
the lowest possible risk score. Yet, during that same time period,
program documents show that ICE TECS Mod's cost and schedule
performance was declining and varied significantly from its baseline.
For example, program documents show that, as of June 2012, ICE TECS
Mod had variances of 20 percent from its cost baseline and 13 percent
from its schedule baseline.
Moreover, the Quarterly Program Accountability Report is not issued in
a timely basis, and as such, is not an effective tool for decision-
makers. For example, the most recent report was published on July 7,
2013, over 9 months after the reporting period ended and therefore did
not reflect that, since then, ICE has experienced the issues with its
technical solution described earlier in this report. As discussed,
these issues have caused the program to halt development and replan
its entire acquisition. Consequently, the newly-issued report is not
reflective of ICE's current status, and thus is not an effective tool
for management's use in providing oversight.
Until these governance bodies base their reviews of performance on
timely, complete, and accurate data, they will be limited in their
ability to effectively provide oversight and to make timely decisions.
Implementation of Recommendations Could Improve DHS's Efforts to
Develop and Implement Its TECS Mod Programs:
In our report, we made several recommendations to improve DHS's
efforts to develop and implement its TECS Mod programs. Specifically,
we recommended that the Secretary of Homeland Security direct the CBP
Commissioner to: (1) develop an integrated master schedule that
accurately reflects all of the program's work activities, as well as
the timing, sequencing, and dependencies between them; (2) ensure that
all significant risks associated with the TECS Mod acquisition are
documented in the program's risk and issue inventory--including
acquisition risks mentioned in our report--and are briefed to senior
management, as appropriate; (3) revise and implement the TECS Mod
program's risk management strategy and guidance to include clear
thresholds for when to escalate risks to senior management, and
implement as appropriate; and (4) revise and implement the TECS Mod
program's requirements management guidance to include the validation
of requirements to ensure that each is unique, unambiguous, and
testable. In January 2014, CBP provided documentation that it had
taken steps to begin addressing the second, third, and fourth
recommendations.
We further recommended that the Secretary of Homeland Security direct
the Acting Director of ICE to: (1) ensure that all significant risks
associated with the TECS Mod acquisition are documented in the
program's risk and issue inventory--including the acquisition risks
mentioned in our report--and briefed to senior management, as
appropriate; (2) revise and implement the TECS Mod program's risk
management strategy and guidance to include clear thresholds for when
to escalate risks to senior management, and implement as appropriate;
and (3) ensure that the newly developed requirements management
guidance and recently revised guidance for controlling changes to
requirements are fully implemented.
We also recommended that the Secretary of Homeland Security direct the
Under Secretary for Management and acting Chief Information Officer to
ensure that data used by the department's governance and oversight
bodies to assess the progress and performance of major IT acquisition
programs are complete, timely, and accurate.
DHS concurred with all but one of our recommendations, disagreeing
with the recommendation regarding the weaknesses in CBP's schedule. In
response, DHS stated that CBP's scheduling efforts for TECS Mod were
sound. However, given the weaknesses in CBP's master schedule, we
continue to believe that management will be unable to determine how a
slip in the completion date of a particular task may affect the
overall project or program schedule, and thus, absent any changes,
continuing to use it as a tool to track progress will remain
ineffective.
In conclusion, after spending nearly a quarter billion dollars and
over 4 years on its two TECS Mod programs, it remains unclear when DHS
will deliver them and at what cost. While CBP's program has delivered
one of the five major projects that comprise the program, its
commitments are being revised again and the master schedule used by
the program to manage its work and monitor progress has not been fully
developed. Moreover, ICE's program has made little progress in
deploying its system, and is now completely overhauling its original
design and program commitments, placing the program in serious
jeopardy of not meeting the 2015 deadline and delaying system's
deployment. The importance of having updated cost and schedule
estimates for both the CBP and ICE programs cannot be understated, as
this important management information will provide Congress and DHS
with visibility into the performance of these vital border security
investments. Further, while both agencies have defined key practices
for managing risks and requirements, it is important that the programs
fully implement these critical practices to help ensure that they
deliver the functionally needed to meet mission requirements and
minimize the potential for additional costly rework. Finally, until
DHS's governance bodies are regularly provided complete and accurate
data for use in their performance monitoring and oversight duties,
their decisions may be flawed or of limited effectiveness.
Chairman Duncan, Ranking Member Barber, and Members of the
Subcommittee, this concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer
any questions at this time.
GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
If you or your staffs have any questions about this testimony, please
contact me at (202) 512-9286 or at pownerd@gao.gov. Individuals who
made valuable contributions to this testimony and the associated
report are Dave Hinchman (Assistant Director), Deborah Davis
(Assistant Director), Kara Epperson, Rebecca Eyler, Daniel Gordon,
Sandra Kerr, Jamelyn Payan, and Jessica Waselkow.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] TECS was created as a system of the Customs Service, which was
then a component within the Department of the Treasury. The term TECS
initially was the abbreviation for the Treasury Enforcement
Communications System. When the Customs Service became part of DHS
under the Homeland Security Act, TECS became a DHS system, and
thereafter has simply been known as TECS.
[2] GAO, Border Security: DHS's Efforts to Modernize Key Enforcement
Systems Could be Strengthened, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-62] (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 5,
2013).
[3] The Acquisition Management Directive provides the overall policy
and structure for acquisition management within the department and is
used in planning and executing acquisitions.
[4] Our research has identified, among other things, that a key
element associated with a complete and useful schedule or roadmap for
executing a program such as TECS Mod is to logically sequence all work
activities so that start and finish dates of future activities, as
well as key events based on the status of completed and in-progress
activities, can be reliably forecasted. See GAO, GAO Schedule
Assessment Guide: Best Practices for Project Schedules, Exposure
Draft, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-120G]
(Washington, D.C.: May 2012).
[5] This estimate is in the program's November 2012 acquisition
program baseline.
[End of section]
GAO's Mission:
The Government Accountability Office, the audit, evaluation, and
investigative arm of Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting
its constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the
performance and accountability of the federal government for the
American people. GAO examines the use of public funds; evaluates
federal programs and policies; and provides analyses, recommendations,
and other assistance to help Congress make informed oversight, policy,
and funding decisions. GAO's commitment to good government is
reflected in its core values of accountability, integrity, and
reliability.
Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony:
The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO documents at no
cost is through GAO's website [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. Each
weekday afternoon, GAO posts on its website newly released reports,
testimony, and correspondence. To have GAO e-mail you a list of newly
posted products, go to [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov] and select
“E-mail Updates.”
Order by Phone:
The price of each GAO publication reflects GAO's actual cost of
production and distribution and depends on the number of pages in the
publication and whether the publication is printed in color or black
and white. Pricing and ordering information is posted on GAO's
website, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/ordering.htm].
Place orders by calling (202) 512-6000, toll free (866) 801-7077, or
TDD (202) 512-2537.
Orders may be paid for using American Express, Discover Card,
MasterCard, Visa, check, or money order. Call for additional
information.
Connect with GAO:
Connect with GAO on facebook, flickr, twitter, and YouTube.
Subscribe to our RSS Feeds or E mail Updates. Listen to our Podcasts.
Visit GAO on the web at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].
To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs:
Contact:
Website: [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm];
E-mail: fraudnet@gao.gov;
Automated answering system: (800) 424-5454 or (202) 512-7470.
Congressional Relations:
Katherine Siggerud, Managing Director, siggerudk@gao.gov:
(202) 512-4400:
U.S. Government Accountability Office:
441 G Street NW, Room 7125:
Washington, DC 20548.
Public Affairs:
Chuck Young, Managing Director, youngc1@gao.gov:
(202) 512-4800:
U.S. Government Accountability Office:
441 G Street NW, Room 7149:
Washington, DC 20548.
[End of document]